Society

A Utah mother was so disgusted with a mall window display she calls “pornographic” that she bought every one of the “indecent” T-shirts the store had in stock.

Judy Cox was shopping with her 18-year-old son on Saturday at the University Mall in Orem, Utah when they walked by a PacSun store display featuring shirts with pictures of scantily dressed women.

“These shirts clearly cross a boundary that is continually being pushed on our children in images on the Internet, television and when our families shop in the mall,” Cox said in an email to The Associated Press.

(Photo by PacSun via KTVX)

The shirts are reportedly from PacSun’s “Visual” by Van Styles collection, which Cox plans to bring to the attention of Orem’s city attorney Tuesday to find out if the tees could be in violation of state and city decency codes.

“The bottom of one woman is completely uncovered and it's a very provocative pose that she's in,” she told KTVX ABC 4. She was mostly worried about children seeing those images on display.

Cox complained to a store manager about the window display, who told her that the T-shirts couldn’t be taken down without approval from the corporate office, the Daily Herald reports.

“As I was leaving the mall I just had this thought come to me that I can’t leave it,” the concerned mother said. “I can’t let it stay in the window for three or four more days while someone makes a decision.”

Cox decided to purchase all 19 T-shirts for a total of $567. Cox told KUTV 2 News, that if the store gets a new shipment, she’ll go back to buy them out again. But she plans on returning the t-shirts later at the end of the store’s 60-day return period.

The Daily Herald reported that the store manager had reached out to the PacSun corporate headquarters about the concern, which the district manager was aware of. But PacSun did not return messages left by the newspaper.

Rob Kallas, mall manager, said this is not the first time that a complaint was issued to the mall about PacSun. Others have previously complained about images in the Victoria’s Secret windows. The store was asked to remove an image once before by the Orem city attorneys, Kallas said.

He didn’t see the T-shirts that Cox was complaining about until he received an email from her. However, he does agree that they were inappropriate.

"This is a store that caters to junior high and high school age kids," said Kallas, mall manager for 40 years. "Some of the poses were provocative and were inappropriate for a store catering to young people."

Cox has contacted the One Million Moms and Women for Decency organizations to talk about her cause to end campaigns like the one in the PacSun store.

"I hope it sends a really strong message to PacSun that at least in this community this is not a standard for us this, this is not something we approve of,” she told KTVX.

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